The barter industry is divided into trade exchanges whereby discrete associations of business operators and professionals are brought together in communication networks in order to trade with new partners, ones that they might not have found without such networks.
Business-to-business trading and the barter industry allow for people and businesses to trade and thereby increase their total numbers of transactions while preserving vital cash flow. Barter communities offer members the possibility of trading with one another and afford their members access to new markets, markets that the barterers may not have thought to seek out. New markets and new customers are brought to the traders and the traders are able to offer their excess inventories and/or untapped capacities to perform services for trade. The benefit of barter is that transactions are made with little cash flow, if any, and excess inventory and capacity to perform services are offered in exchange for something that is needed by the business owner or professional with very little cost to the trading members.
Each trade exchange has its own policies determining how a member business or professional may trade with other members. Each trade exchange has a system of accounting for each member's monetary units due or owed, and perhaps a system of converting those units to currency. With each transaction, trade units are transferred from the buyer's account to the seller's account. This is not very different from the workings of a bank. The barter companies facilitate trading members trading in products or services only, but they also allow traders to transact their business partly in cash, if the traders agree upon the cash portion beforehand. As an example, a hotelier may want to trade for three computers at $1000 each. That hotelier offers in exchange 15 nights accommodation that are normally worth $200 per night. If the computer trader decides that this deal can only be accomplished if the hotelier pays 60% cash and 40% trade, and the hotelier agrees, then the deal will go as follows:                1. the computer dealer will trade the computers to the hotelier,        2. the hotelier will pay $1800 to the computer dealer,        3. the barter company will keep an accounting of ONLY the barter part of the transaction as follows                    a. the barter company will deduct 6 nights ($1200 worth of services) from the account of the hotelier, and            b. credit $1200 worth of product/services to the account of the computer dealer, and                        4. the barter company will assess any applicable fees.        
The $1800 cash paid for the computers is never accounted for by the barter company, only the part of the transaction that equals the room nights is accounted for by the barter accounting system. There is a need in the barter industry for a currency that is made up of part cash and part product or service. This hybrid currency will allow barterers and business-to-business traders to transact business more easily and without unnecessary negotiation regarding cash. The point of bartering is to facilitate transactions. Extra business is possible due to the existence of the trade exchanges, which offer an alternative means for their members to communicate. There are currently no barter companies that allow their members to trade in a flexible currency, which is made up of a percentage of cash and trade, determined by the individual members.